Economist Debates adapt the Oxford style of debating to an online forum. The format was made famous by the 186-year-old Oxford Union and has been practised by heads of state, prominent intellectuals and galvanising figures from across the cultural spectrum. It revolves around an assertion that is defended on one side (the "proposer") and assailed on another (the "opposition") in a contest hosted and overseen by a moderator. Each side has three chances to persuade readers: opening, rebuttal and closing.

In Economist Debates, proposer and opposition each consist of a single speaker, experts in the issue at hand. We also invite featured guests to comment on the debate, not to take sides, but to provide context and informed perspective on the subject.

Those attending an Oxford-style debate participate in two ways: by voting to determine the debate's winner and by addressing comments to the moderator. The same holds here. As a reader, you are encouraged to vote. As long as the debate is open, you may change your vote as many times as you change your mind. And you are encouraged to air your own views by sending comments to the moderator. These should be relevant to the motion, the speakers' statements or the observations of featured guests. And they must be addressed directly to the moderator, who will single out the most compelling for discussion by the speakers.

Closing statements

Bjorn Lomborg is an adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School and director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, ranked by the University of Pennsylvania as one of the world's top 25 environmental think-tanks. He is the author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and "Cool It" and his latest book, "How Much have Global Problems Cost the World?", will be published by Cambridge University Press in October. He is a frequent commentator in print and broadcast media for outlets including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, CNN, FOX and the BBC. His monthly column appears in 40 newspapers in 19 languages and has more than 30m readers. Both Time and Esquire magazines have named him one of the most influential people in the world and Guardian called him one of the 50 people who could save the planet. He has repeatedly been named one of Foreign Policy's top 100 global thinkers.

Adjunct professor, Copenhagen Business School and Director, Copenhagen Consensus Center

I think the real question is whether we believe that economic growth will be better than no growth for biodiversity. I think this conversation has clearly shown that no growth will lead to a much worse long-term outcome for biodiversity.

Jonathan Baillie is responsible for conservation projects involving threatened species and habitats in over 50 countries around the world. His research focuses on defining the status and trends of the world's species and ecosystems. He has been the lead editor on a number of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red Lists and of "Evolution Lost: Status of the World's Vertebrates", and has played a key role in developing major biodiversity indicators such as the WWF Living Planet Index, the IUCN Red List Index and the Wildlife Picture Index. In 2007 he founded the EDGE of Existence Programme with a team at the Zoological Society of London. He also helped lead an experiment called Project Ocean, in partnership with Selfridges, to make sustainably sourced fish fashionable. He is a scientific adviser to Globe International and an adviser to Synchronicity Earth.

Conservation Programmes Director, Zoological Society of London

Instead of pretending that our ever-increasing ecological footprint might somehow magically benefit biodiversity, we should simply do the maths, face the facts and get our greatest minds focusing on growth that benefits all life.

Emma Duncan is the Deputy Editor of The Economist. She has been the magazine's chief reporter on climate change and has also held several other posts on the paper, including Britain Editor and Asia Editor. She has covered the media business, the Middle East, home affairs, agriculture, commodities and the transport industry and has served as Delhi correspondent, covering India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. She has written special reports for the paper on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, India, Pakistan, the food industry and climate change.

Ms Duncan appears regularly on television and radio programmes. She has written widely on a freelance basis, for publications such as the Times, the Sunday Times, the Evening Standard, the Daily Telegraph and Vogue.

In 1988-89, she wrote "Breaking the Curfew" (Michael Joseph), a book on politics, culture and society in the troubled state of Pakistan.

She has an honours degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University and started her career as a researcher and reporter at Independent Television News.

Ms Duncan has three children and lives in London.

This argument has not suffered from a frequent problem in debates: that, by the end of it, there is so much common ground that the proposer and opposer hardly disagree with each other. By the rebuttal stage, there was a point of agreement between our debaters. Bjorn Lomborg said he accepted Jonathan Baillie's starting-point—that our current definition of growth is unsatisfactory. But that, pretty much, was it. The two debaters remain far apart.

Mr Lomborg spent much of his rebuttal phase attacking Mr Baillie's notion of an ecological footprint. Much of the footprint is produced by the need to neutralise the CO2 produced by an individual's energy consumption. In the conventional calculation, that is done by planting trees, which takes up a lot of land. If it were done through wind turbines, says Mr Lomborg, the footprint would shrink dramatically.

Mr Baillie devoted his rebuttal phase to concrete examples of how growing wealth, and thus a growing footprint, impacts on biodiversity. People pick palm-oil products off supermarket shelves, for instance, without thinking about the damage they do. But often their production means the destruction of primary tropical rainforest. A poor farmer clearing a small patch of land, he maintains, has a lesser effect on ecosystems and biodiversity.

EClyde is unimpressed by that point—and indeed by much of Mr Baillie's rebuttal. There is, says EClyde, no alternative to palm oil at present. And the only way an alternative will be developed is through more growth and more technological change.

Most of the commenters, though, are on the other side. Angelokapi provides considerable detail in support of Mr Baillie's claim that rich countries export the environmental damage they do. Japan, America and the United States, claims Angelokapi, are the principal sources of the demand that leads to illegal logging in South-East Asia. Lownool details one of the consequences of the fad for aquariums in the rich world: people buy them, get bored with them, tip them into rivers and streams, and the crayfish that escape into the wild destroy local river life. Growth, says Dr Albert, need be neither good nor bad, so long as it is accompanied by environmental protections—but the willingness of people in the rich world to pay for such measures is, according to a poll to which he directs readers, declining.

At this stage, the voters are still siding with Mr Baillie and a comment from The Performance Consultant: "A cancer is a thing of perpetual growth … eventually it kills its host."

Bjorn Lomborg is an adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School and director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, ranked by the University of Pennsylvania as one of the world's top 25 environmental think-tanks. He is the author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and "Cool It" and his latest book, "How Much have Global Problems Cost the World?", will be published by Cambridge University Press in October. He is a frequent commentator in print and broadcast media for outlets including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, CNN, FOX and the BBC. His monthly column appears in 40 newspapers in 19 languages and has more than 30m readers. Both Time and Esquire magazines have named him one of the most influential people in the world and Guardian called him one of the 50 people who could save the planet. He has repeatedly been named one of Foreign Policy's top 100 global thinkers.

It has been an interesting debate, I thank Jonathan Baillie for a good conversation, and it is clear that many participating here believe that growth is not good for biodiversity.

While I have great sympathy with the sentiment behind such a vote, it still seems to me that we have to own up to some important realities, which I believe Mr Baillie would agree on.

First, poor countries have more important concerns and hence put less emphasis on biodiversity.

Second, higher human populations probably make it harder to protect biodiversity, and lower or no growth will mean higher populations.

This indicates that without growth, we will have a worse biodiversity outcome than with growth.

The main argument from Mr Baillie and many of the comments on this debate focus on GDP leading to a higher ecological footprint. While this is true, it is mostly because the problematic construction of the index, measuring carbon emissions in how much forest needs to be planted to soak up the CO2. As this amount of forest is not actually being planted (if it was, it would make a huge difference in our biodiversity conversation), the measure is simply theoretical. If we instead used the more area-efficient (and more politically plausible) conversion to area by planting wind turbines, the increase in global ecological footprint would have gone up over the past 50 years just 15 percentage points (from 55% in 1961 to 70% today) rather than 78 percentage points (from 63% to 151%).

This also puts the focus back on whether the footprint will max out with growth or not. The most important part (almost 50%) is crop area. Here, land area is often assumed to keep increasing steeply (which will increase the pressure on biodiversity), but even the FAO estimates only a 4% increase in farmed area by 2050.1 Jesse Ausubel et al. in 2012 even estimate that we are likely to see peak farmland soon, and a decline in farmland used till 2060.2

This indicates that the main part of the ecological footprint will not dramatically increase pressure on biodiversity and it might possibly decrease over time. Moreover, it is important to recognise that both the FAO and Mr Ausubel et al. show that rich countries are reducing their crop area, partly because of more environmental concern and high-yield agriculture. This again emphasises that higher GDP makes more biodiversity more possible.

In conclusion, I think the real question is whether we believe that economic growth will be better than no growth for biodiversity. I think this conversation has clearly shown that no growth will lead to a much worse long-term outcome for biodiversity. Some comments have suggested that with massive redistribution, we could still actually achieve a reasonable wealth level, no growth and safeguard biodiversity, but it seems to me that such an outcome is entirely unattainable.

The reality is that we have two choices. No growth will lead to higher populations, less concern for the environment and worse biodiversity outcomes. Growth, on the other hand, has generally increased willingness to spend on the environment and led to reforestation and more protected areas, while innovation and high-yield agriculture are now reducing or will in the near future reduce area demands. All of these help biodiversity.

Jonathan Baillie is responsible for conservation projects involving threatened species and habitats in over 50 countries around the world. His research focuses on defining the status and trends of the world's species and ecosystems. He has been the lead editor on a number of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red Lists and of "Evolution Lost: Status of the World's Vertebrates", and has played a key role in developing major biodiversity indicators such as the WWF Living Planet Index, the IUCN Red List Index and the Wildlife Picture Index. In 2007 he founded the EDGE of Existence Programme with a team at the Zoological Society of London. He also helped lead an experiment called Project Ocean, in partnership with Selfridges, to make sustainably sourced fish fashionable. He is a scientific adviser to Globe International and an adviser to Synchronicity Earth.

"Speed is irrelevant when you are going in the wrong direction." This quote epitomises Bjorn Lomborg's infatuation with rapid growth (GDP) rather than a focus on the ultimate destination. As GDP increases, the nation has a larger ecological footprint: consuming more food, consuming more water, consuming more materials and consuming more energy. Where does he think these additional resources come from? Even innovation cannot create a perpetual motion machine of growth because material consumption matters.

Countries with a higher growth rate (GDP) do export their negative impacts on biodiversity to other parts of the planet, but this is challenged by Mr Lomborg, who amusingly uses South Korea as an example of country of high economic growth and stable forest cover. Yes, South Korea is largely covered in forests, but it is both a major importer of food, which impacts on others' biodiversity, and an importer of forest products. In fact, most raw forest products for South Korea, such as logs, lumber and bamboo, come from countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia. We live in a global economic trading community, so the world of growth (GDP) and biodiversity must be viewed on a planetary scale, not in an isolated framework.

Further examples of exporting negative impacts on biodiversity can be seen in the South American and Caribbean section of the FAO's "State of the World's Forests 2009" report, which states: 'large-scale export focused commercial agriculture, including livestock, has expanded impressively (eg soybeans, biofuel crops, meat, fruits, vegetables and cut flowers) and is responsible for most of the region's deforestation.' Africa's forestry export market is in an earlier phase, but the FAO predicts that this will grow significantly. Over the past decade trade between Africa and China has grown from $11 billion to $166 billion, most of which is driven by the natural resources sector. Currently, Africa makes up only 4% of China's forest-product imports, but this is set to change and with it we will see major declines in Africa's biodiversity.

If we move from land to water in viewing countries externalising their negative impacts on biodiversity, we see that China's distant-water fishing fleet extracts roughly 4.6m tonnes of fish each year from waters beyond its borders, and that European fisheries source almost half their 13m tonnes of fish from beyond the European Union (EU); in the case of the EU, this dependence on foreign waters is largely due to the fact that almost two-thirds of EU fish stocks have been overfished. Once again, national activities must be seen on a global scale for their ecological footprint and their ultimate effect on biodiversity.

The ecological footprint approach is viewed as flawed by Mr Lomborg because he claims that it includes CO2 emissions and that it uses an inefficient conversion ratio to translate consumption into hectares of land use per human. Mr Lomborg's posture over the inefficient conversion is just a distraction; the issue he and we cannot escape from is that countries with higher growth (GDP) have a higher ecological footprint—even if you remove CO2 from the equation. Period.

In the economic world of today the debt consumption complex is the driver of growth. Instead of pretending that our ever-increasing ecological footprint might somehow magically benefit biodiversity, we should simply do the maths, face the facts and get our greatest minds focusing on growth that benefits all life.

Comments from the floor

Dear Madam,
we can see clearly that the transformation of the industrial activities from the developed countries to the emerging ones has a huge negative impact on the environmental quality in developing countries and the globe as a whole. the pollution heaven hypothesis can be taken as a good explanation of what is really happening. The developing countries are attempting to reach high levels of economic growth by providing logical options for foreign corporation to switch it's production lines to these countries where the costs of production are cheaper and the environmental restrictions are less dominant.

Mr Lomborg seems to confuse growth with economic growth, and then confuses economic growth with socially equitable and environmentally sustainable growth. Population growth drives demand for natural resources which, all things being equal, will degrade environmnetal quality and erode natural capital. Thus, growth can only be equated to economic growth if we insist on externalising or undervaluing our environmental commons. Furthermore, even 'economic growth' that is not socially equitable leads to sub-optimal application of eco-efficent technologies, and so the unsustainable consumption of natural resources continues.

Dear Madam,
As far as this debate is concerned, I anticipate a reasoned decision that may say that (a) no one has disputed that the kind of growth we had achieved so far has been detrimental to biodiversity if you reckon global growth vis-a-vis global biodiversity (many would not have conceded this say some twenty years ago) (b) decreasing biodiversity may be an index, among others, of ecological degradation and extreme weather conditions that may test us sorely for decades to come (c) chances do exist for a more just and equitable global approach to growth that cares for global biodiversity simultaneously and (d) man's technological and innovative genius will come to his rescue, in various fields like biotechnology, coupled with the spread of awareness of the problems that decreasing biodiversity would cause. Here I join with Eclyde when he writes in his comments on 22nd 11:53:23 am “I choose to marvel at this modern world and have faith in man's ingenuity to overcome whatever challenges lie ahead, we will not just survive, we will thrive! And this will not be realised through subsistence lifestyles” (sic).
Admirably 'Whitmanesque', I'd say.
I think it would not be out of place to mention here that the broader concerns and issues relating to this informed debate also engage the attention of global leadership at a more comprehensive and urgent level.
The Copenhagen Climate Change Conference 2009 was attended by close to 115 World Leaders, the largest gathering ever outside the UN Headquarters. The Copenhagen Accord of 2009 signed on the eve of the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the UN, was understandably not as clear in spelling out specifics as we may desire. This does not mean that nothing has been achieved or nothing is being attempted. There is a vastly increasing sense of urgency among leaders in many countries in addressing the problems highlighted in or related to this debate.
President Obama made a clear policy statement at Georgetown University yesterday (25th September) on Climate Change (climate change, growth and biodiversity are all closely intertwined). This is a very promising and forward looking development. Please see this link for a clear analysis : http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2013/06/25/67963/10-es...
Indonesia, Brazil, China and India have all made significant policy decisions regarding these issues subsequent to the Copenhagen Accord.http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-11/22/c_131262368.htmhttp://pmindia.gov.in/climate_change_english.pdfhttp://www.internationalrivers.org/resources/rio-20-and-brazil-s-policy-...http://www.theredddesk.org/countries/indonesia/info/plan/national_action...

On 6th September this year the US and G-20 countries and the US and China signed separate agreements to phase down the production and consumption of hydroflourocarbons (HFC's or 'Super Greenhouse Gases').
The point is, this debate is part of the larger issue of growth with equity and ecological sense. I would like to assert we will collectively rise to accomplish this task. For the simple reason that Mother Nature has already given us enough terrible signs to clean up or quit.
Lastly a word about what we eat, obesity, manipulation of minds and biodiversity. Many of us in the developed countries eat far more meat than we need to. We eat far more species than we need to. We manipulate people's minds through ads far more than we need to to make them eat and drink more and more. They become obese and sick and we don't seem to care. Shouldn't all this concern us? Thought I'd just share this tangential thought in parting.

Dear Madam,
Biodiversity is to be thought of as a marker for assessing what human activity measured in terms of economic growth is doing to the Earth's ecosystem that sustains life. Performance Consultant is spot on. Cancer is also growth. But it kills its host.
What reason do we have to think that post-industrial human economic activity is not a cancer that will eventually kill the host, namely, the Earth's life-sustaining ecosystem if it carries on at the same pace and style and in all countries ?
Is there going to be a sudden dawn of Wisdom and willing reversal of our lifestyles in such a way there will be more forests, more fauna and flora everywhere, more water and food for everyone and for all life forms?
Is there going to be a global Saint Francis of Assisi who will move our hearts so profoundly that we will deem all life forms as precious as our own and protect them by making as many sacrifices of our needs, pleasures and pastimes as possible for their sake?
Let us admit that the rat race of growth has led us to an ecological precipice. We must be clever, scientific, and innovative in addressing this problem. No question about it.
But that alone will not help us. We should regain our natural born qualities of caring and sharing.
We should unite to make sure our growth will stop destroying our ecosystem.
As of now we seem to be more united in going along a certain trajectory of our economic growth though the results are hardly equitable.
We can and must be equally united in making sure that that growth is more equitable. Simultaneously it must sustain and resuscitate our ecosystem.
From the point of view of evolution of life on earth it is likely we bipedal primates with advanced tool making abilities and language skills are in a cul de sac like the dinosaurs once were.
Extreme weather conditions which are increasing in frequency may wipe us out. Like it did the dinosaurs once. Nature may start from some other form and evolve once again along other branches of life. Actually the Earth belongs to them. We are the newcomers, the expendables.
What is our insurance against this fate?
What makes us unique, what set us on this self-destructive course is itself the insurance.
The same language skills, the same primate bonding and social skills, the same tool making abilities is our insurance.
Only we have to use them differently.
I'll give an example.
There is a start up smart phone company, Fairphone. News about it is buzzing on the internet. They care. They source the metals like tantalum and tin, among others, needed for making smart phones from conflict free, fair vendors. Not from some mafioso or warlord in Congo processed through sweatshops elsewhere. They make sure you can open the phone and repair it. They make sure it lasts. They make sure it will be re-used in manufacture. They don't borrow to make millions of phones and go on an ad blitzkrieg to sell them. They will book orders for the first 25000 phones. And then make and deliver them. Then they will book more and deliver. They are refreshingly non-obsessive with increasing quarterly rate of growth of profit. This is what their website says. Let us hope they succeed.
This positive example can be replicated widely.
We will enter the world of Steady State Economy Model. No cancerous growth. Just fairness all around with smart sustainable technology that cares.
Please see this links about Steady State Economy : http://steadystate.org/ where we find this quote from David Suzuki : “Somehow we have come to think the whole purpose of the economy is to grow, yet growth is not a goal or purpose. The pursuit of endless growth is suicidal.”
Economics itself should become 'Humanomics'. See this link : http://humanomics.us/presentations/HUMANOMICS_Paper_Dr.Jeff_Eisen.pdf
These are all green shoots that hold promise of evolutionary changes in human consciousness beginning to influence economic activity.
Unlike the process of evolution up to the human level that is widely deemed to have worked over countless millenniums by genetic mutations and the dynamic of the “survival of the fittest”, at the human level perhaps we are programmed to live for Life itself, programmed to keep the Earth alive. Our genome perhaps has such a programme that will express itself when it should. Perhaps God gave man “dominion over the fish of the Earth, and over fowl of the air, and over every creeping thing that creepeth over the Earth” so that man is programmed to evolve to a level where he can sustain all life. “They alone live who live for others; others are more dead than alive” said an Indian monk, Swami Vivekananda. Even if there is one such person left alive, all life forms will come back into exuberant life once again in the fullness of time. This last expression is for emphasis and for evoking empathy and hope.

I think we need more data to evaluate the correlation between economic growth and biodiversity damage. Both experts use strong argument to their position but none of them mentioned the R squared indicator for their argument.
I strongly believe that the impact on biodiversity has nothing to do with economic growth and I need to see the R squared of the regression in order to be convinced. The moderator does not use quantitative number in order tu support her opinion.
I agree partially with both experts opinion but the most convincing is that placed by Jonathan.

Dear Madam,
Frequently quoted causes for environmental degradation are the prisoner’s dilemma and the tragedy of commons: the prisoner’s dilemma exemplifies the overuse of common pool resources and human rationality is considered to be linked to the tragedy of commons. In addition, political and social systems have failed to instil a sense of ecological morality in the general populace and as such one must question human nature when considering the plight of the environment and affiliated biodiversity. Human universal traits have the propensity for technical innovation, the will and motivation to improve one’s status and the perception of social justice – our instincts have led us to this point in time and as such we revel in it. This circumstance will not change as it is rooted within our DNA. I support Mr Lomborg’s argument as it advocates development and growth, which compliments human nature, inevitably leading to a circumstance of wise use of resources through innovation in technology. In short, this path of development will prevail as it makes us happy. It is unlikely that a political and social circumstance of moderation will replace an ethic of competitive individualism.
I do not understand the opposing argument, it seems to have no place in reality. Consider the point on overfishing: what is the alternative? People require protein to survive and fish is yummy – the survival of marine species is reliant on many things, none of which are Malthusian in flavour.
The importance of biodiversity is unequivocal, thus, development is woven into its complexity; preserving biodiversity will not be realised in limiting growth as this circumstance will not provide alternatives to palm oil or marine species.

Where we consume resources for growth unless those scheduled from recycle matter, the more will be loss of the biodiversity ecosystem vitals. Growth cannot be good always as the pollutants we leave behind always cannot be undone.

We require growth not only for gross economic domesticity but unless our 7 billion population needs to be met, we must catalyze mass production to lower cost. This margin takes run of our end to explore more vulnerable remains on our planet. The harvest comes from a price not like the old supply demand theory but there also must not be deflation at any cost. What we see behind growth is a strategic front leading less consumption ratio only where supply for the trade deficit to be meet may only prevail place on the coin demographically across the world? If I disagree on this floor that withheld for any problem at hand, the growth always did more price for the biodiversity with mass consumption for industrialized society, we have to table facts.

There has been growth always where the present biodiversity wealth meet uncommon synergy. We need to bridge this gap always existed. Today we have positive awareness. When growth start with resources needed, let us point in a direction where sufficiency is not the final yet handshake reliable greenery on the vulnerable biodiversity making our investment shine towards positive core elements - "Growth where biodiversity diversifies growing economic elements without gross deflation at any end."

Dear Madam,
My vote is against the motion for Mr Lomborg's arguements ignore most of the vast knowledge published and instinctively available with ancient societies all over the world. Indian icon Mahatma Gandhi said,over 70 yrs ago,"earth can provide for every ones need but not for their greed. Growth comes from demand which in turn depends, mainly on increasing population and greed to accumulate resources. Demand for energy is the the biggest and all-pervasive driving factor for all the growth as also same for all kind of desruction of biodiversity.
Assuming genetic diversity within species is part of biodiversity, it has gone down in all species barring homo-sapiens. Farming of every kind is tending towards mono-culture. Human efforts are to preserve its own with little regard for biodiversity. Technological advances have led to destuctive side effects, in time, unknown at the time of its adoption and has never caught up with its consequences. The topic and the debaters touch only a pin-end. Growth, as at present, can only bring forward the Malthusian limit, pushed back for long by medical advances.
US PRISM programme portends that Orwellian society is not many generations away. And that is likely to add to biodiversity.

The problem of growth being good for biodiversity is a obvious no. If one looks for the last 1000 year of human history one can see this clearly, with a steep increase in biodiversity destruction in the last 200/100 years.

The problem is not of determining if growth it is good as if we had any choice... we don't. If you think we do you are throwing on the shoulders of the developing countries the bill of the present wealth of the 1ª world (obtained by harvesting the planet resources over the centuries). In fact, it is morally indefensible to try to prevent the underdeveloped populations of the world of the goods and well being the fell entitled to.

So there is really no "no-growth" option for humanity (growth in the HUMAN sense). Only growth of every individual of the human race as a individual with education, human rights, access to resource with equity can bring real Growth (with capital G).

Of course if we have growth in the developing countries one would expect, by analogy with the history of the XX century in Europe/USA, the rising of "living standards" to levels like the ones in EU/USA.

This is not by any means guarantied. In fact the rising of the living standards in EU/USA came about with civil movements of people to claim work/payment benefits. The growth was the catalyst for this movements... not it's cause.

In the present corporate/government framework the growth-narrative is CONTRARY to civil and work rights, education and any other improvements that have a negative impact on the balance-sheet, so, presently, growth (in the economic sense) can only mean EXPLOITATION.

Thus as the question is about growth in the economic sense, my vote goes to the NO.

Dr. Lomborg argues that growth means more interest in conservation, and I accept that as true. Dr. Baillie argues that developed countries have higher footprints, and I also accept that as true.

To me this appears to present a real problem that was not directly dealt with during the debate: Do we say 'yea' to growth and raise our footprints while relying on technological impact mitigation until populations (maybe) decline? Or do we say 'nay' to growth and allow the low-impact 'developing' populations to continue to increase until there are so many people that impact is as great as a high growth world, but with no hope of population decrease? I believe here the choice must be for growth.

It is surprising how little the Economist (in its special edition on biodiversity) and Mr Lomborg dwell on the globalised nature of trade-flows and externalities. Countries with high GDP-growth are increasingly exploiting resources from and exporting environmental costs around the globe. This is why they have a higher footprint and a major reason why growth - as we currently measure it (ie GDP) – tends to be bad for biodiversity.

This is the narrative of multilateral agencies, governments and corporations around the world. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment made clear back in 2005 that running down the Earth’s natural capital can undermine future economic growth, and the well-being of millions, particularly in developing countries. The TEEB for Business Coalition recently estimated that the global top 100 environmental externalities are costing the economy world-wide ~$4.7 trillion/year. Global businesses increasingly cite resource insecurity as a major risk – and talk of increasing supply interruptions, price volatility and political tension over resource access. Growth that creates resource scarcity can actually undermine global economic security. Dieter Helm of the UK’s Natural Capital Committee put it nicely: “Economic growth must be sustainable – otherwise it will not be sustained”.

We urgently need to re-frame how we measure growth, moving beyond GDP to take into account the status of natural (and other forms of) capital as well as human well-being – and put in place the governance to grow sustainably. Thankfully, (and contrary to the picture painted in this debate) these issues are climbing the global agenda – with numerous important initiatives out there.

Global efforts are underway to ensure that the new post-2015 development framework (successor to the Millennium Development Goals) highlights the links between sustainable economic growth, well-being and intact natural resources. Many countries are developing national policies geared around valuing and safeguarding natural capital (e.g. via the support of development banks and other agencies, frequently under the auspices of “green economy”). Natural capital accounting is gathering pace, both at the national level (e.g. via the World Bank WAVES initiative) and corporate level (e.g. via TEEB for Business). Multilateral agencies are increasingly factoring in environmental considerations when evaluating investments (e.g. International Finance Corporation, Asian Development Bank, Millennium Challenge Corporation and many others). Business is also leading the way in many areas, including via initiatives such as TEEB for Business, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Richard Branson’s B Team and many others. Civil society organisations are increasingly active too, creating innovative partnerships such as the Natural Capital Project (collaboration between WWF and the universities of Minnesota and Stanford, in the US).

A debate on how we can grow in such a way that both improves human prosperity and safeguards biodiversity would be welcome.

Dear Madam, Growth is not good for biodiversity as many stakeholders tend to focus on industrialization for growth. as a result is the elimination of diverse species around the content. if the focus on growth could be changed, the it would be justified. thank you